Guest Writers – dance art journal

EQ DANCE CO.’s Sanctuary at Longfield Hall | Review & Interview with Artistic Director David West

Words by Jodie Nunn.

Paved with poeticism, poignancy, and playfulness, EQ DANCE CO. offers a conversant take on the quest for physical, mental, and spiritual Sanctuary, emblazoned with a profound nuance that glistens like golden flecks in a woven tapestry of everyday existence.

Having previously reviewed an excerpt of this piece as part of Resolution Festival at The Place (London) in May this year, I was delighted to receive an invitation to attend EQ DANCE CO.’s final week of rehearsals to review this performance in its entirety. EQ DANCE CO. creates dance works centred around mental health and the human experience, with Friday 30th September 2022 marking the premiere of the company’s first full-length piece, Sanctuary.

At the helm of the project, Artistic Director David West leads the cast of four in this spiritual search for security, emblazoned with a profound nuance that glistens like golden flecks in a woven tapestry of everyday existence. With a spiralling acceleration, the dancers circumvolute the physical, mental, and spiritual manifestations of sanctuary, navigating the ritual of repetitive routine, the struggle for connection and companionship, and the sabotage of self-image.

Sanctuary opens with West’s character: a statuesque representation of physical sanctuary. A whirring soundscape dissonantly lingers in the air, its cyclical, sinister strings pushed forward by a plucking undertow. The cyclical rhythms in the accompaniment are reflected in West’s movement, depicting the relentless rigmarole of routine, each time becoming more crazed, flailing, and uncontrollable, as if been manipulated by an external entity. West demonstrates a grounded lightness as he soars through the space, the accompaniment shifting to support the atmospheric luminescence of his circling. The juxtaposition of violent frustration and accepted quietude is well controlled by West, particularly prominent in moments aided by staging, draped in what appears to be a child’s blanket, or later donning a pastel pink cape, matching that of his childhood toy bunny.

Pagan Hunt and Ellie Trow are in constant communication. The vivacious warmth of the classical guitar, melodically intricate, softens the spearing projection of the piece. A platonic soulfulness is outstretched via the exchange of origami hairgrips, worn and pinched, the theme of connection and companionship clear. The playful and meandering exploration is sliced by the ruin of the home-base tent, designed by Loe D’Arcy, and crash of thunder and subsequent rainfall, the demolition of their shared sanctuary. Trow exhibits pain, struggle, and desperation, showcased in breadth and breath, her body opening and closing in vast concaving and convexing movements, initiated from torso, expanding to extremities. Hunt on the other hand sweeps with a frantic, hurried anxiety, pinpointed in a morass of dynamic intention. Hunt and Trow tentatively mirror one another in a trance-like state as they suspend in a vaporous, transcendent promenade. As the score erupts with verve, so does the pair, boasting wide smiles and vast, hovering floor sequences. The duo navigates the light and shade of searching for sanctuary in community with honesty and integrity.

Mental manifestations of sanctuary and the omnipresent shadow of self-image are expertly confronted by Alys Davies. The ominous undercurrents present in West’s opening solo rear once again, now refracted in Davies movement, entangled in a chaos of cloth and conceit. Davies masterfully shifts her weight both actively and passively across the space with unfathomable ease, liquifying durationally in the face of tension. Davies darts with an accelerating charge, ravaging up the space, blind to her surroundings, a simple pink cloth tied across her temples. Her solo is poignant, the perfect vessel for which to carry the audience through to the final quarter.

Sanctuary’s finale spirals with liquid warmth. For the first time, all four characters interact, weaving in and amongst one another, the simple sheeted set, and the central, golden strand of sanctuary. Appliquéd with a playful poeticism, the company embroider a relatable tale with nuance and poignancy.

I spoke to West after the performance, dissecting the notion of sanctuary, his approach within the studio, and his hopes for the reception of this piece.

Q: Having cultured the notion of sanctuary, initially conceived from shared experiences of the pandemic, do you think your understanding or even experience of sanctuary has changed as a result of creating this piece together?

West: “I would say it’s definitely developed from an origin point and continues to do so even now after its debut. I think our sense of sanctuary is always going to be challenged at some point of our lives, and for potentially various lengths of time, be it physically, for example your health or living situation can change overnight, or mentally, you can deal with a couple of problems, but what about when it comes in waves, then oceans, how do you stem the tides? Within this work we look particularly at self-image, crippling indecision, frozen by external pressures, and learning to look inward to find strength. Spiritually, we look to finding sanctuary in others, be it friends or family; this expands into community and what constitutes as that, understanding the individuals within it and understanding that not everyone will necessarily get along. I think we can all agree that we all want security, sanctuary. I believe that this is an important place to practice empathy. With all that said, to answer the question, the context of sanctuary is always shifting, changing in us and around us, therefore my experience of it is in constant flux.”

Q: What was the process of creating this piece, and did you understanding of sanctuary influence your approach within the studio?

West: “When we took on our cast after an online audition process last year, my collaborator Josh Baker-Mendoza (the writer for this project, helping to flesh out the narrative, storytelling element of the show) and I led with effectively interview style questions, giving our cast some artistic license, sharing their thoughts on what sanctuary meant to them. Slowly but surely, we started to see a framework appear, which led to the anthology of the individual characters and their stories, where the main pillars of sanctuary appeared, as a physical, mental, and spiritual thing. This would lead to a RnD structure, gaining understanding of each character; working with the artists, we created first drafts, and when developing the final section, we worked on how each character would co-exist in the space together, and to figure out what was their shared goal was, what was the shared form of sanctuary.

Most recently, leading up to the debut, we spent the last month reworking and redefining the individual characters. We took the time to define what really mattered to these characters, to see them as living, breathing people; what would they care about in certain moments? This was the driving force in the final stages of production. What was also the main driving force leading us to where we are now was the kids. We originally aimed at 12+ years, but we were encouraged by Creative Scotland, following our last RnD period, to aim for a younger audience. Working with schools in Camberwell, London, performing and conducting workshops, made the project so much more worth it. Even with this younger age group, kids are starting to discover what their sanctuaries are.”

Q: What do you hope audiences take away from this performance?

West: “Ultimately, we want people to be able to relate to the characters in a real way, we are a mental health dance company after all. We want to make people laugh, cry, even feel frustrated, it’s all important. The experience we want to provide is an authentic one. We aim to provide people a chance to see themselves on stage, so they can process some of their trouble from an outside perspective looking in, to see it before them, rather than existing in thoughts running around inside their heads. Dance is great way, and especially with us being a dance theatre company, to show these thoughts and manifest them physically to the highest standard, and with honesty.”

For future performances and workshop opportunities, you can find EQ DANCE CO. over on Instagram.

Taylor Han and Simone Seales on ‘With Catastrophic Consequences’ | interview

Words by Hannah Draper.

Both Glasgow based artists, Taylor Han and Simone Seales’ show With Catastrophic Consequences is performance which invites the audience into a space of collective warmth, using improvisation and storytelling, or story sharing, to build a performance of dance, music and dialogue that explores individual and communal moments of joy.

Han has a focus on improvisational practice, musicality and community work, while Seales’ seeks to create spaces of ‘radical joy’ as an ‘intersectional cellist’. The two artists’ practices have collided and culminated in With Catastrophic Consequences. They use audience prompts and memories to create improvised performances for the whole audience. The audience for instance collectively makes a song on a loop pedal, and Seales travels outside their comfort zone to perform a dance choreographed by audience suggestions. The result is warming and uplifting – with beautiful, poignant and humorous duets and solo moments from both performers.

Watching the performance unfold showed the potential of improvised performance to connect strangers and use risk to craft unpredictable moments. I spoke to Taylor after watching the show on Sunday at Pianodrome as part of Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2022.

Question: Could you talk a bit about the name of the piece – With Catastrophic Consequences?

Answer: It’s a bit tongue in cheek, obviously – it’s not, it’s not really ever going to be a catastrophe. When me and Alex, the first musician on this piece, were working together, we were just playing with ideas. He was reading a book and on the blurb there was a quote, and it was like, ‘fuelled by desire, she makes her move with catastrophic consequences’. And we were like, well, that kind of works. So we just kept it as a little reference to the potential uncertainty and catastrophe that could unfold.

Question: Could you tell me about the creation process and practice that you and Simone have together?

Answer: It’s been a bit of an unusual process in a way. I had initially been working with a different musician, and we had developed the structure together within the show; little episodes at moments, improvisations. And then basically, because of COVID, and of living in France at the time, he ended up not being able to work on the project anymore. So I did a call out, which was how I found someone, which was really scary and nerve wracking for me because it was a lot about our relationship. So, it was really important for me to find someone who I felt like I had a really good rapport with. So I was just very lucky to have met Simone. We worked on ideas made with the Alex, and also did a lot of learning about each other. We also work with a dramaturg/co-creator, Ramon Ayers who helped craft how the show’s peaks and troughs. Initially, we spent a lot of time just playing and moving and trying to attune to how one another creates.

I think a lot of that groundwork has helped when we use these quite abstract ideas from the audience members. Ramon helps us crafts it, and craft our own stories that we bring to the work. We worked together at the space in Dundee, and that was where we sort of honed in on the majority of the structure. Since then, we’ve honed in on things, tightened things up, played with things and suggested different ideas before a performance. We called the sections ‘building blocks’ which we can reorder for different performances. So, as long as we’re confident with the structure of each block and how they fall into each other, then we can kind of mess around a bit.

Some of our audiences couldn’t believe how short we’ve known each other. And we couldn’t believe how short we’d known each other. But I think it was just that sort of intense working process and like getting to know each other in that way that helped.

Question: The performance focuses around creating a joyful experience through dance and music; what was the motivation for making the piece?

Answer: Alex and I had both seen a lot of very serious contemporary dance, and really dark subjects. So we wanted to make an antidote to serious contemporary dance. We knew we wanted it to be light hearted, we wanted it to be joyful, maybe a bit funny, and the thread of it would be this connection between music and dance and dancer and musician.

Question: What was it about improvisation, that you were drawn towards?

Answer: It’s funny because when Simone and I are rehearsing I’m like, we’ve made this really hard on ourselves. I’ve always just really enjoyed improvisations and playing with the sort of intricacies of music.

When I watch contemporary dance, I really like to feel included as an audience member, I like to feel like I’m there with them. So, I think that was a nice way for me to tie my love for improvisational music, but also to sort of include the audience in that way.

Question: A lot of the pieces includes storytelling, either from the performers or the audience, and sometimes translating stories to movement. What is it about movement that you think is particularly good to be able to sort of make an experience?

Answer: I hope I’m not saying to this audience member: okay, well, now I’m going to dance your life. Instead I’m like: thanks for sharing this little segment of your joy, I’m gonna see if I can make something that translates into joy for me and someone which can then pass on to the audience. So it’s more like a stimulus or something. It’s really exciting, and also really difficult because we have no idea what people are gonna say. We can work around it and we can always ask different questions or, you know, dig into things a little bit more, if it’s something that we aren’t sure of how to approach.

Question: How did you test audience interaction in the creation process?

Answer: In the creation process it was still COVID time. So for our audience we had three or four people in our audience. At our residency at The Space, we tested it on all the students at the space. There, we could perform for them, stop, and then ask them questions about their experience. That was really fundamental, because it’s quite a difficult piece to rehearse without an audience.

Question: The audience participation fosters a sense of collectivity in the audience. What creative tasks did you experiment with to create this?

Answer: There’s been lots of different iterations. Most of the structure is similar, but it’s the subtlety of how we interact that’s changed. We were very conscious of audience participation often being uncomfortable for people; we didn’t want to single people out. We found that when we just asked an open question and waited for a response it was actually harder for people to participate. But when you make eye contact with people, and you sense that someone might be interested, it’s easier to ask them a direct question. So that was a big learning curve for us. We also had to do a lot of changing and testing when making the song with the audience. Because of COVID there were times we couldn’t even go near the participants. So we had to listen to their music, then repeat it ourselves on the loop pedal.

Question: Have you ever done it with younger audiences?

Answer: Yeah, it was really fun. They loved the section where we made someone dance and they were so creative with their suggestions. The kids were like ‘so someone, you’re going to be being pulled apart by two ropes, and then those ropes are going to be cut. And then you’re going to be picked up like a puppet.’ On a residency at Dundee Rep we got the chance to work with lots of different community groups; young people age 11 to 13, older men who are recovering from addiction, we’ve worked with people in a mental health and wellbeing group. This really helped grow the show.

Question: And how did this sort of almost like meditation imagery at the end?

Answer: So that was our collaborator Romane. He said ‘this might sound really cheesy, but just go with it.’ So we got the audience to imagine a dance, and we thought it worked and added in. And because of COVID nobody could touch each other. So, we were thinking about how we could get people to dance together without actually being together.

We’re very careful about our language and how to bring people into and out of the meditation safely. I’m very conscious that when you ask people to imagine a favourite person, they might imagine someone that’s not here or it could be a dark experience. So, we’ve tried to use grounding techniques to make it as safe as possible for people.

Question: And what do you think that you learn from working with a musician? And what do you think? Maybe they’ve learned from you?

Answer: Simone is very good at remaining calm and remaining relaxed. I think musicians are much better at spontaneity and limited rehearsal time. Whereas, I feel like dancers are a lot more primed to be making everything perfect within a hair. So it’s been really nice to capture Simone’s energy, especially when we’re like backstage and I’m freaking out. Maybe it’s nothing to do with the fact that they’re a musician. But that’s been something I’ve definitely learned; to keep calm and to take my time to listen. Simone is really good at listening. If I’m ever unsure on being anchored by a concept, or an idea that an audience member has suggested, I can anchor myself to Simone’s music. They’re a super talented performer and musician, and that was always really important for the show; it wasn’t going to be a musician who sits in the corner. It’s been really enjoyable to find that collaborative voice on stage.

With Catastrophic Consequences was performed at the Pianodrome as part of Edinburgh Fringe on August 27th and 28th 2022. All images by Genevieve Reeves.

For more information about the artists:

Simone Seales | Intersectional Cellist

Taylor Han Dance Artist

Sonia Hughes ‘I am from Reykjavik’ | review

Words by Hannah Draper. Performed at Edinburgh Fringe as part of Horizon Showcase.

Monday 22nd August 4.19 pm, Portobello Promenade

I walk along the promenade to find Sonia Hughes. A small crowd is gathered in the distance in front of the shell of a small wooden structure. It is a grey day of dreich and wind. I stand for a while, then walk around along the beach behind and watch from different angles. People come up to talk to Hughes as she builds the compact wooden house-like structure, some offer to lend a hand. The structure becomes support for the body as Hughes leans on it while she talks to members of the public. It is leaned over as you would across a kitchen table. I cannot hear the conversations shared across this space; they remain intimate and held within the area of the dwelling. The sound of the sea helps to conceal these conversations from the rest of the audience. Hughes wears a long emerald green dress which bellows in the coastal breeze. Its regal appearance seems unfitting for the construction work of the performance, but highlights Hughes’ ownership of the abode that she is building.

Wednesday 24th August, Linksview House, Leith

Today I am working, so I watch the performance unfold over the 7 hours of building from afar on the livestream account on Instagram (@soniahughes192). Sonia sets up in front of the mural that reads ‘You’re Worth Your Room on This Earth’ on the side of Linksview House, an 11-floor post-war block of flats in the Kirkgate area of Leith. The photos show people sheltering under umbrellas, sat around the structure sharing tea with Hughes. The mural in the background seems a fitting choice for the performance in which Hughes is taking up residence in space without asking. She will build her dwelling over the course of the day whether people offer to help, or stand and watch, or walk by.

Friday 26th August 11.42am, Holyrood Park

I cycle to the park, prop my bike up against a tree and walk over to where Sonia has marked out the dwelling for today; the final day of performance in Edinburgh. A yellow square with two gaps, doorways, in the middle of which the structure sits. There are pot plants in one corner. We are at the edge of the park, situated in a clearing of planted oaks, rowan trees and pear trees looking over the stone wall where you can see Holyrood Palace with all its many windows, blinded and shut off. The ruins of Holyrood Abbey stand beside it, currently also under construction. Today I go up and speak to Hughes; she jokes that both her and the queen are having work done. The structure faces towards the palace in a decisive stance. Made in response to her parents being turned away from a holiday booking on the Isle of Wight after the owners found out they were Black, the performance questions the idea of belonging to and possessing space and what systemic structures of exclusion are involved in this. As we look out over Holyrood Palace, Hughes says ‘me and the Queen’, pondering over what that relationship might be. Between the solidity of a stone palace handed down over generations, remaining empty and preserved, in comparison to Hughes’ portable wooden structure – exposed to the elements, but adaptable, movable and shared with the public.

Sonia describes to me how the structure is made to the dimensions of her body. The short end corresponds to her height as the sits on a chair, while the taller entrance side is equal to her height standing up. The length is the measurement of her coffin. She makes her way to the floor and stays there a while, resting, eyes closed. I sit and watch and look around; held in Hughes’ space and time. There is no rush; she will build the structure in the time it takes, responding to her own needs and the needs of the body as she does so.

Hughes welcomes conversations from the public, asks questions about where people live and where they might move. She is curious, while also being reassured in her own time and actions; I am aware that I have been welcomed into her space.

A seafront, a block of flats, the Queen’s palace; a liminal space, a crowded dwelling, an empty, imperial house. I am from Reykjavik asks what it means for somewhere to become home and through which actions this is formed – both from the inhabitant and from the public; what actions are allowed and not allowed, what conversations are had, where is help given and how tea is shared.

Eve Stainton Dykegeist at Horizon Showcase | review

Words by Hannah Draper.

Industrial techno is blaring through the curtain that separates the performance area from the bar when the performance starts. The audience mills in, standing around Dykegeist choreographer Eve Stainton who is smiling, dancing vigorously on a small stage wearing 90s raver clothes. Unidentified stuffed cloth forms hang from metal hooks like pieces of meat, thin metal structures are propped up around the room, a metal gate sits between two pillars and a pot of hair gel is sat in a mound of gravel.

Eve is accompanied by the musician Mica Levi who crafts the soundscape of the piece. They step onto the pallet platform together, over which the ‘meat’ hangs, while a strobe light flashes at them as Mica helps Eve put on strap on belt and take off their jeans. We are given glimpses of their bodies leaned in towards each other, the meat-like forms hang above – a sort of sinewy, dark reminder of our own animal flesh. The strobe makes it hard to watch so I look away and look back – also thinking how maybe this moment of intimacy is not for my eyes.

Eve approaches me, hones in, the sounds of a cowboy crossing the room echoes across the floor created by the small microphones strapped to Eve’s shoes. Glasses lift up as they lean in and I am met with a smile – a ‘Hi, how are you?’ No guns in sight – no shoot out imminent, I am safe. I am asked if I would feel comfortable moving with them from standing to lying. I am told in detail what will happen next; I have the insider knowledge and I am invited to become a performer, participant and player in this game. After I meet the floor, I’m asked if I would feel comfortable with them lying on top of me, facing away. I feel safe and relaxed and say yes. Afterwards, I am thanked, get up, and return to being an audience member, unscathed and actually very relaxed by feeling in a safe state of surrender and curiosity.

Eve and Mica shift the performance from club-scene, to an eerie meat market, to a hybrid-Matrix-crab-spider-creature, back to a club scene, to partnered intimacy where a word whispered in an ear signals danger, but where a word whispered in an ear is also tender, erotic and supportive. There are moments when hair is stroked and slicked with gel and a neck is held in a supportive mutual embrace again.

At another moment Eve lies prostrate in front of someone, holding their ankles, face down, tapping their feet on the ground making their body and legs pulsate. Is it orgasmic, an insect-like warning signal or mating dance? Dykegeist mocks the idea of mystery around lesbian and queer sex, making the performance of the predator figure into something so bizarre, and yet so normal and caring when Eve talks to the audience, that we are left unable to build a definitive image of the ‘character’.

We never hear the words whispered in ears as we look on. We see either a respectful shake of the head, a move away and a search through the crowd for the next person to approach. The performance addresses the fear we have of the Other and how we Other (you sound different, move different, look different) and reclaims the dehumanising process of othering by leaning into our other-than-humanness.

The scorpions that hang down from Eve’s arms signal as a warning, a tail waiting to sting, a pincer wait to bite – the latent risk believed to be held in a body that stands outside the normative and the binary. Dykegeist crafts a space that dispels ideas of the lesbian predator through heightening them to absurd and surreal limits, while presenting radical displays of consent, trust and intimacy in the setting of an industrial club space where the overall feel of the atmosphere is one of communality.

Yellow cans of Tennents handed over to audience members is how the piece ends. A familiar sign of the warmth and hospitality in the sharing of a tinny; thank you for coming, welcome, cheers – there’s nothing to be scared of here.

Dykegeist was performed at the Biscuit Factory, Edinburgh on August 22nd and 23rd 2022 as part of the Horizon Showcase.

The Horizon Showcase continues until August 28th with performances such as The Dan Daw Show, Marikscrycry’s He’s Dead, Sonia Hughes’ I am from Reykjavik and Sung Im Her’s Nutcrusher. Horizon 2022 – Horizon Showcase

Creative Team

Concept, choreography, performance: Eve Stainton Sound performance: Mica Levi

Producer: Michael Kitchin

Digital collage and steel sculptures: Eve Stainton

3D typography: Pauline Canavesio aka BORA

Costume: Sophie Donaldson

Dramaturgical support: Jamila Johnson-Small & Zara Truss Giles

Mesh by Maija Hirvanen: movement as life | review

Words by Katherine Adams.

Mesh, which premiered in Berlin at the Tanz im August festival, is a work modeled after forms of organic generation. The piece draws on principles one might find in contact improvisation to explore an intensely non-anthropomorphic autopoiesis within movement. Within the basic movement score of the work, one can discern Finnish choreographer Maija Hirvanen’s interest in root networks, such as fungal ‘mycorrhizal’ networks that connect flora underground. Yet one of the more stunning aspects of this piece is how it interweaves sequences redolent of primordial, pre-bodily instinct with distinctly sapient, communicative qualities of the body such as voice and song.

The work starts with jerking movements that course, as if unwillingly, through each of the four dancer’s limbs. Knees jolt toward the ceiling, seeming to burst with a critical mass of generative energy not yet sutured to any clear purpose or trajectory in the movement. In this preliminary stage, the dancer’s bodies are clearly individuated, but soon the organic force rippling through their quartet activates the nascent Mesh along a third plane of motion. Traversing the space between themselves, the dancers morph slowly into a melded body, imparting a heavy quality to the same weighted bodies whose joints we just saw lifted toward the ceiling.

We initially encounter these four bodies in a moment of dispersal—but now, their movements indicate that separation must be avoided at all costs. In pairs, the four push up against one another—their intensely close, nearly invasive gestures suggest fragmented forms of intimacy or aggression. Yet ultimately, these interactions are detached from any clear emotion. At one point we see a chin touched, as if affectionately, but this caress dissolves into a controlling twist of the head; another dancer’s embrace becomes a nearly acrobatic tumbling that progresses along and against the body of their partner—the other dancer appears one moment as a collaborator, and the next only as a structure. Whatever interpersonal semantics one might try to discern in these partnered micro-scenes quickly dissolves. Affect is labile and uncertain, subsumed under a collective drive toward growth.

Halfway through the work, after Mesh’s collective body moves through these stages of grafting, imbrication and branching-together, a dancer collapses. Until this moment, the work’s four performers embody the propagation of emergent life—restlessly grafting their limbs onto one another, their movements appear shaped by a latent force of spontaneous growth impelling each dancer’s tumbling body toward a common, shifting centre of gravity. Before this climactic fall, touch and skin-to-skin connections had appeared vital to the work’s movement language. Yet once sound and vocalisation supplant the function of contact, the composite bodies from Mesh’s opening sequences simply access another layer of organic feedback—growth, power and potency become possible across distances.

The midpoint lapse created by this newly immobile member fractures not only the group’s hybrid body but their very principle of motion. It is a rupture in the dramaturgy of this networked world, and for the work to move forward, voice must take the place of touch. Confronting the death or physical failure of their fourth member, the remaining three performers begin to sing. Here, after its biomorphic slippages between so many purely organic, quasi-primordial forms of motion, Mesh connects immediately back to a quasi-human impulse without shifting us out of the interwoven, coordinated world of ahuman growth. One could liken this brief poetic sketch to mourning or grieving, given the passage’s almost ceremonial character. After Mesh has purified our interior, human-centered perceptual archives of emotional references—ensuring that we no longer see Mesh’s partnered movements as overtures to desired others but as facets of a collective need—we are confronted again with a gestural clarity that might seem irreducibly human.

Significantly, this shift towards a motif of human ritual happens no longer through the frame of a life-force but on the pretext of bodily death. In the wake of this brief melancholy Mesh’s principle of coherence broadens. What before demanded contact can now take place through coordination. Limbs no longer need to be grafted onto one another, but cut through the air like scythes, in synchronisation. Still later, liquid port-de-bras of one dancer’s arms suggest a more cerebral control over the environment, a new principle of development. Whether or not it intended to leave the realm of fungal motion, what we see unfold is an exterioriaation of the principle of growth, the development of technique through and ultimately beyond the sphere of corporeality.

Nevertheless, Mesh does not leave us with a settled, developmental narrative of organic motion. Even if human remnants of motion and comportment seep through at its theatrical checkpoints, cyclicality remains key to the work’s staging and choreography. Some of Mesh’s most moving and provocative sequences happen through its accompanying sound, which integrates audio feedback from the dancer’s movements and voices throughout the entire work. Mesh’s use of feedback as a sonic and choreographic principle captures human impulse within its ambit. Rather than fetishising or siloing off the non-human within a performative fourth wall, Mesh pushes us to the more-than-human point where instinct and environment converge.

A Festival of Korean Dance 2022: Dismantling Traditions

By Sunhi Keller

From performers deconstructing a piano and gender politics to dances erasing certain senses and heightening others, the 2022 A Festival of Korean Dance held at The Place offered an enriching curation of selected works from South Korea: Muak by Bora Kim, Sense of Darkness by Soo Hyun Hwang, Tongue Gymnastics by Yun Jung Lee, and Miin: Body to Body by Jinyeob Cha / collective A. All four female choreographers brought a unique perspective as Korean artists to the current political climate, pushing the boundaries of soundscape, gender roles and cultural tradition.

Opening the festival was Bora’s Muak, featuring an ensemble of dancers dismantling an old piano sitting centre stage under styrofoam wrapping and packing tape. One by one, the performers step up to the piano to tear, slash, slam, poke, pound, scream at, climb across it. The destruction becomes more and more aggressive – one dancer even takes a screwdriver out, undoing the piano at its seams. In the process, the piano transforms from an unmoving object into a living entity as it is being thrashed and throttled, exhibiting sounds from its pounding keys to the slamming of dusty wood. Their actions become increasingly aggressive – one dancer even stabs the piano at the seams with a screwdriver– eliciting sounds of violence from the dying piano, the pounding of keys to the slamming of dusty wood. Once the piano is fully destroyed, the performers pile the parts into a heap onstage, where its old, intact ghost once sat. They sit with their backs to the audience, staring at the discombobulated piano, transforming the pieces through rearrangement. The term Muak, translated to English, refers to music performed during a shamanistic ritual where, through ecstatic dance, the shaman transforms herself into a vessel for the voice of the spirits. In Muak, the destruction of the piano (an object that has historically accompanied dance) becomes the music, as opposed to the conventional source of music coming from playing keys. Bora’s dancers have dismantled an object that usually controls their rhythm, beats, and timing and created a soundscape that challenges the concept of constructed melody.

Sense of Darkness and Tongue Gymnastics were placed side by side on a double bill, with both pieces addressing and playing with the senses, using synesthesia to embody the confusion of cross-cultural communication. In Hwang’s Sense of Darkness, four women dressed in black enter the stage, their eyes closed. As they travel through space, holding hands and interspersing fluid slower movements with sudden jolts and rocking, they build a crescendo of sounds, communicating through screeches, chirps, and humming. Hwang structures her piece around a “lost” sense – and the sense of loss – reinforcing the importance of connecting through sound and touch while moving blindly across an unknown landscape.

In Tongue Gymnastics, Lee and Eun Joung Im play with the dancing tongue as a metaphor for language. To the beat of a metronome, they stand next to one another, using their tongues to push and probe their cheeks and lips into dynamic shapes, starting and stopping together. Lee and Im bring out music stands and chairs to sit down next to each other. They begin reading off the sheets of music and over pronounce their tongue movement to produce noises and words foreign to the Korean language – they practice their Ls and Rs. To finish off their sound rehearsal, they suck on lime slices, their faces projecting visceral reactions to the sour taste – scrunched up eyes and pursed lips – echoing the sour taste of unfamiliar sounds in their mouths. Mimicking the movements of their mouths, the dancers then push each other into a duet physicality of their tongues.

The final show of the festival, Miin: Body to Body, addresses the gender politics women face within South Korea, a country notorious for its skincare regimens, plastic surgery, and idealised beauty standards. Miin means beauty, most often used to refer to ‘beautiful women’. Five women and one man take the stage, which is covered in a circular layer of fine sand. The dancers are dressed in white with clear sheets on their faces to mimic facial sheet masks, a visual representation of the societal pressures of needing flawless skin, a beautiful face. Their movement plays between simple walking and more intricate, unified floorwork. As four of the women dance together in the sand, one woman sits watching, dressing herself in a suit (a symbol of masculinity) as the man stays off to the side of the sand, fluctuating between dancing on his own and circling the women.

Cha intersperses words, dance, visual projections, and live music to narrate feminine identity, beauty standards, and societal expectations of women. Towards the beginning of the piece, one of the performers tells the story of the mother cuckoo birds – connecting them to the history of “female hysteria” , emphasising the power of words (“cuckoo”) and how language has been used to diminish women. Upstage, behind the dancers Eunyong Sim plays the geomungo, a traditional Korean stringed instrument, over electronic music composed by haihm. Sim is a classically trained geomungo musician, historically played only by men. Throughout the work, she strikes and pounds the strings of the geomungo, breaking tradition not only in gender, but also in the “delicacy” of how one should play, just like how the performers dance between pedestrian and physicality, power and fragility.

The 2022 Korean Festival showcased four transformational works choreographed by women, each of which engaged their audiences with questions regarding conventions of gender, culture, and tradition. While each of these pieces conveyed aspects of personal experience, they also portrayed an overarching theme of how culture is continuously changing, and how we can persevere in challenging societal norms through dance and performance.

SEVENS by Nina Rajarani Dance Creations | Review

Words by Giada Palmisano

The tinkling of Indian rattle anklets – known as ghungroo – settled in the darkness. In the slow ascending light appeared a blend of warm and brightly coloured costumes, well-pronounced make-up, and the bright smiles of the dancers, delighting the eye of the audience with the aesthetics of the Bharatanatyam and Kathak tradition. Musicians and vocalists accompanied the dancers on stage throughout their journey, merging the tradition of classical Indian sound with a modern westernized one through rhythmic and melodic experimentation. Saturday, April 2nd marked the triple bill performance SEVENS, by leading UK choreographer Nina Rajarani at The Place, London.

Seven Snags:

The first act immediately presented a flirtatious scene – joyful and carefree – between young people who, through sparkling pirouette and quick Kathak footsteps sought and avoided each other. It gave the impression of the first phase of a relationship, each partner entering in with the intention of not letting the flame fade away. It brought me back to old adolescent memories and then to more recent ones, to the moment the eyes light up when seeing someone for the first time. Typical of most crushes, it’s that person who captures our attention, accompanied by pleasant emotions and a sense of timelessness.

At the end of the evening during a post-show talk, Rajarani expressed her intention to represent our current reality through the sudden changes of partners in the space: people search for partners in a constant frenzy, and today’s virtual world offers ease compared to a few decades ago when it was unimaginable to find someone for even just a few fleeting hours.

Seven Steps:

The second act ignited with a long, virtuous braid of hair and the distinct red colour painted on the bare feet of the protagonist, a woman so feminine as to transmit the energetic power of fertility. She seemed to evoke the mythological characters from Indian epics, typical of the notable artist Raja Ravi Varma’s paintings. Fixed upper torso, bent knees and angled arms, defined characteristics of Bharatanatyam style, were the centerpieces of Nina’s dance as she occupied the stage with elegant movements and an unconditional smile. The call of mudras was often present, in which she communicated through symbolic gestures with the fingers and palms of her hands.

Vocalist and composer Y Yadavan accompanied her ritual, walking with her on stage as her harmonious protector and her guide. He turned toward her with an everlasting gaze, unconcerned that his back faced the audience as they remained pleasantly captured by the love story in motion. The sound of his a cappella singing made me recall the melodic mixture of mantras chanted during yoga sessions and the singing of Hindu prayers. I was able to give meaning to my reflection when in the talk Rajarani mentioned that this section portrayed the Hindu marriage rite of the seven promises called Saptapadi. Saptapadi is when wife and husband, with each step, make mutual promises in honour of a happy and fulfilling marriage. To what extent can this type of promise be fulfilled with a ritual, if I might wonder?

Seven Sins:

The atmosphere of this final act translated into another type of emotional and communicative environment. The smiles of the dance ensemble constantly present from the beginning faded into more serious, concentrated gazes, turned inwards to their souls, almost in a meditative state of connection with themselves. The colours of their clothes traded their brightness for softer pastel shades, beautifully mirroring the new situation created. Sensuality and sexual instinct were the main elements to open this act: two dancers – a man and a woman – intertwined in carnal movements on the ground where even here you could feel a hint of those role-playing games between those who lead and those who let themselves be guided by their lover. In this case, the woman appeared more predominant in wanting to guide the sexual act herself.

This beginning scene resonated with my reminiscence of shame and embarrassment of when, as a teenager, I faced certain topics with my mother, who, coming from a strongly Catholic religious background, lived a life forged by heavy feelings of guilt. This was typical of many religions based on the sense of guilt and therefore on fear, as a powerful manipulative tool for the people. Rajarani was highly successful in her purpose to choreograph this last section, with an empathetic view of what we see as sinful and of what we judge as right or wrong.

This duality has been explored in all forms of art and is reflected here in the meticulous and experimental use of sound; in fact, the echo of the opposing voices at the beginning of the third act made room for the instrumental and vocal music to follow. It gave life to the vibrations – as abstract as they were rhythmic – that fit perfectly with the fusion of Kathak and Bharatanatyam. I did not notice any judgment in this performance; rather, it was the interpersonal listening that dictated where the movements of the dancers became more fluid and refined. Within and between each dancer was a journey of research and acceptance rather than of condemnation and fight.

~The heartbeats are the ones that kick off the beginning of life, they are the ones for which music was born. The beat is what made this performative picture come alive thanks to the constant presence of the ghungroo at the ankles of the dancers who, with great skills, became the percussionists banging their heels on the ground. As their drumming resonated with us, a woman of the audience perfectly associated it with the beatbox of rappers, where the groove is the basis of everything. SEVENS was a tale of sin and song, passion and paramours. A vivid life-painting in motion.

“Dance helps my body find its centre” | Interview with Minako Seki

Words by Dally Schwarz

It was October, the beginning of the autumn and almost the end of 2020. I was in my room in Lisbon and I remember it was during a hard moment of the COVID-19 crisis. I don’t remember how, but I found an online workshop named “The Power of Imagination Series”, by Minako Seki from her Creative Dojo. I was looking for some practice and as a dancer and martial arts practitioner I just jumped in. My first experiences with Butoh was in some workshops with Giohey Zaitsu (2014) and Tadashi Endo (2017) in Brazil and I was curious to know how Minako Seki developed her approach to this Japanese art. This series of online workshops started in 2020 and she developed six parts between 2020 and 2021. So I opened my window to the power of imagination and there I found Minako-sensei.

Minako Seki was born in Nagasaki, lived for a long period in Berlin and also lived for some time in Mallorca. She started her dance career in Tokyo with the Company Dance Love Machine, under the artistic direction of Tetsuro Tamura and Anzu Furukawa.

In 1986 Künstlerhaus Bethanien, first Butoh Festival in Berlin, invited the company Dance Love Machine to perform in Europe and to participate in the festival ‘Die Rebellion des Körpers‘. In 1987 she founded and co-directed the company “Tatoeba -Théâtre Danse Grotesque”, the first Butoh dance ensemble in Europe.

An interdisciplinary choreographer, she has developed her own fusion of contemporary dance and physical theater with the classic Butoh dance technique. She developed her Seki method with a holistic vision of the body integrating macrobiotic food, meditation, yoga, Butoh/dance and nature connection. She continues creating, dancing, teaching and this year she is finishing her first book. I asked Minako if we could have a meeting to talk and she gently accepted. It was a zoom meeting on a Friday night, December the 3rd, a special date for me and also almost the last eclipse of the year.

DS: Could you please present yourself to us?

MS: I am a dancer, choreographer, dancing teacher and also practicing meditation, cooking the macrobiotic and also teaching the Japanese traditional healing and including all that in my life/work. It is kind of holistic because the body is also holistic. That’s why I do this dealing with the mind, body, digesting, soul and spirit, all together, because it is the body.

DS: Why did you start dancing?

MS: The reason why I started to dance goes far back into my personal history! I was born in front of the ocean where I could always see the horizon. As I was a child, I had this curious desire to know what was behind this line. I had this strong question and I could feel this burning inside me: What is behind this line? The need to answer this question was really a basis for my creative outlook.

I’ve also had a lot of jobs throughout my career. This has enabled me to see and understand things from different viewing points and perspectives.

I have always had a strong desire to experience everything with my body. I like to put things into order and get a sense of things in order to comprehend life.

The experience of living and knowing my body was really important to me. For a long time I was on a journey of self-discovery; I thought I would be a costume designer, then a painter, then a musician. I passed through many art forms.

One time, a friend invited me to free music improvisations. We explored and experimented with music and the body, and objects.

I was helping a music group when I randomly stumbled upon a Butoh festival. Onstage was Dairakudakan, vary famous group of Japanese butoh from tokyo. There were more than 20 dancers, all with shaved heads, in white ink with a lily flower in their hands, doing a lot facial expressions.

I’d never seen anything like that but my impression was kind of familiar. In the same night I saw Yosuke Yamashita. He was my favorite musician who worked experimentally with jazz and the body. I met up with him and a dancer he was with, who subsequently invited me to a workshop.

I didn’t even know what a workshop was – at that time in the 70s it wasn’t really spoken about in Japanese culture! I went to this workshop and it was really intense. We cooked, danced and practiced together. It was very transformative for me.

DS: That’s really an amazing story. Why do you continue dancing?

MS: This is an interesting question because in the Butoh scene it is usual for people to dance even at an old age. In the 80s there were 10 groups of Butoh, and now it is only me and Yumiko Yshioka who remain from the 80s generation. I am now 60 years old and Yumiko is 68 so we are still onstage and dancing. So still dancing is not usual. In the Butoh we have a lot older people doing it, but in Berlin it is not so usual.

Every day I am cleaning the body through movement. This is for me a continuation. In another workshop in NYC recently one of the Butoh dancers and organiser from NYC asked me if I would be dancing in the next 10 years, and I answered I don’t know.

I don’t need to be a dancer all the time, but this continuation with the cleaning of the body I need to do always. My body tells me what I need to do all morning and it is a routine. Waking up all the tissues and bones, blood circulation, not only the digestion and physical aspect. And this is a bridge between cleaning the mind and physical body, to clean up and also connect to softer energy in the universe, that creates this architecture where I can see the amazing the body system we have.

This is a surprise, and as I said, the mystery, with this kind of grateful and thankful feeling that we are here and we can be warming all together. These are very basic and simple practices, but they keep me going. I become more grateful everyday. It radiates naturally towards people and I don’t feel like I have to put effort in to keep doing it.

DS: During your workshops a lot of people give this feedback about feeling alive and happy. Why do you think this practice can help people to have this mood?

MS: I like to see practice as a form of performance. I return to exercises of purification and do these simples things to have good energy. It is something that gets us through life. Like yoga practitioners, because they do it every morning, it keeps the mind and body connected. It cleans the body. It’s regenerative – much like the tide that turns, or the rituals that we humans do to purify ourselves.

DS: You call your practice Fundamental Awakening. What do you think is fundamental for people who work as artists and work with their body?

MS: There are many many things, it’s difficult to say. As artists we have a choice to be creative and exist in the moment. So if you want to be a creator you must observe how to overcome obstacles.

I think it helps to find truth in your life; to face and feel all your obstacles, to pass through all emotional states rather than to push out and pretend you are happy.

Get in touch with your emotional self and feel it. In all the activities we are doing in life we are looking for love, truth, trust, confidence to be happy. All of these are mind things, that’s why meditation is so important.

We don’t talk about fundamental awakening without mind matter because everything is connected to the mind, body, spirit. So, it’s so important to follow your intuition and be very intuitive, to ask yourself from your subconscious from inside the unknown and find deep things and become very humble, and technically you will see your eyes becoming more sharp and then you do what you need to do.

Through this kind of balance we start to see answers in many places in nature. Nature is very inspiring for me, where I can see all the mystery and all the answers, even in small architecture, which is so perfect. So with these strong and creative eyes you will be able to feel-see many things and it will help you to become more unique to do your unique art. For me it’s an everyday work so you can become very humble, grateful, generous from the inside to outside and start from opening your eyes.

DS: This is beautiful because we also can imagine the whole body with eyes, I mean you also talk about the other eyes we have in our body – in hands, back of the neck. But returning to the centre… In your workshops and also in your method you talk a lot about this connection between sky and the earth, through this centre of the body. Why do you think some people lose this connection?

MS: Hum..not losing no, if you find this connection once you do not lose it so much. It needs a bit of practice and awareness to find own weight according to gravity force, because centre is totally related to the gravity weight. This is totally easy. If you see a very good dancer moving, you will see there is a centre. Doesn’t matter capoeira, ballet, or contemporary dance. Doesn’t matter, everybody has this connection on the earth.

DS: Yes, maybe the question is about finding the centre…

MS: Yes, sometimes when you see someone affected by the emotional, anxiety or other emotional issue, generally, you can see this person doesn’t have the centre. The centre is also bringing emotional content. So, you need to also work with mind, mental and physical. You can start to check this if you observe people walking, you can see clearly. I always see on the street everybody naked, I can see the tail or centre tail.

Illustration by Lili Lenfant for Minako Seki’s book

DS: I am curious about the book. Is it your first publication?

MS: It’s my first one.We are working now, we have more than 100 pages. I feel not yet dynamic, because we work on the table. Almost everyday, after training I see we have important things for the book. The book is about my history, youth, why and how I came to dancing and then exercises, the basics of the method, and explanation of my way of seeing the body, the body mapings – drawings. There is also drawing from Lili Lenfant – my assistant, illustrator and dancer. It will be available in Japanese, English and German. The book is for all artists interested. And definitely I like to have it in paper, and now we are looking for publishers.

This was some transcription of our talk, of course that was so much more, because it’s such a pleasure to listen and learn with Minako’s presence. She is always expressing herself with a lot of sense of humour, gestures and also the whole environment around her becomes a translation for her ideas around life, dance and body. For me this interview is a gentle way to connect and listen to the history, knowledge and experience of a woman in movement which can make some bridges to the younger generation to reflect possible ways to keep dancing and living in life. I also reflect on how it is important for dancers/body practitioners to share their research in publications with their own words and ways to express it.

If you want to know more about Minako Seki works have a look in her site: http://minakoseki.com/ Header image: Ulrich Heemann.